Fail

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra has been soundly thrashed by the Sony Xperia 1 III in a series of speed tests. While both phones sport the Snapdragon 888 SoC and have 12 GB RAM each, it seems the new Xperia 1 III enjoys enhanced Android and RAM management optimizations over the Mi 11 Ultra with its heavy MIUI 12.5 overlay.

OnePlus has been facing plenty of flak lately because of the whole app-throttling performance and benchmark manipulation issue that the OEM was caught implementing with the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro smartphones. The company has posted a caption challenge to its followers on Twitter, which has somewhat backfired so far.

The Security Service of Ukraine shut down an illegal cryptocurrency mining operation in the city of Vinnytsia. Authorities seized over 3,800 PlayStation 4 consoles, 500 graphics cards, processors, notebooks and other peripherals from the site. The perpetrators also tried to conceal that unusually high electricity usage using fraudulent methods.

The Comet Lake processors Intel Core i7-10700 and i9-10900K have been found among thousands of CPUs recently seized by Hong Kong Customs. Chip smugglers have been caught using methods such as taping the computer parts to their bodies to try to sneak the Intel processors past border control points.

OnePlus has responded to claims that it throttles CPU performance in the new OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro. The company asserts that it was helping 'to provide a smooth experience while reducing power consumption' based on user feedback, even though it did not tell anyone that it had imposed a per-app CPU performance limit.

The official OnePlus India Twitter handle erroneously posted a Tweet about the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. It was promptly deleted, but eagle-eyed users managed to screenshot it. OnePlus seems to have taken the whole incident in good spirit and implored Samsung to return the favour.

Amazon has banned well-known brands from its platforms, including Aukey, Mpower, TaoTronics and RAVPower. However, the retailer has now caught up with another Chinese manufacturer.

Another day arrives with yet another issue of OnePlus messing things up. The company has now been found to be severely throttling browser performance of Chrome, Twitter, and pretty much all popular internet-based apps on the OnePlus 9 Pro. Geekbench considers this to be a form of benchmark manipulation and has now delisted the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro.

Audacity users were enraged by privacy policy changes made by the software's new owner, Muse Group. These changes both damage Audacity's reputation (and chances of further distribution) in the FOSS community and may violate the GPL licenses the software is licensed under.

Reviews for the Sony Xperia 1 III have started popping up and there seems to be a general agreement over two points in particular: The Snapdragon 888 smartphone has middling battery life and is priced way too high. Users will expect nothing but the best from the Xperia 1 III if they are to pay US$1,299.99 for it.

OnePlus has announced several changes for OxygenOS, its custom version of Android. As expected, OxygenOS and Oppo's ColorOS will merge, but this coalescence will yield a few advantages, apparently. However, it seems that OnePlus has forgotten that it used to release three OS updates to its devices. The company has not addressed the lackadaisical approach it currently takes to releasing OS and security patch updates, either.

After incidents with a Poco X3 and Redmi Note 9 Pro months ago, two Xiaomi devices have now also chosen to go the way of flames. The two devices, a Poco C3 and a Redmi 8, exploded and dealt damage to the owner and a child respectively, with Xiaomi initially absolving itself of all blame in one instance.

Apparently, it's not just the announcement of Windows 11 that has been keeping Microsoft on its toes lately. According to reports, an employee of Microsoft's Xbox division managed to exploit a security flaw which allowed him to steal Xbox gift cards worth an absurd amount of money.

A new WhatsApp Beta has fleshed out what multi-device support means for the popular messaging app. WhatsApp will soon support up to five devices simultaneously, but not multiple smartphones.

Amazon may be running its Prime Day sales, but ITV News has revealed the extent to which the company sends unsold products to landfill and recycling centres. According to the report, Amazon only donates a fraction of unsold products and sends up to 200,000 items for destruction every week, just at one of its two-dozen Amazon UK warehouses alone.

Mozilla, the organization behind the popular Firefox browser, has taken some pot-shots at popular tech gadgets for being “super creepy”. The Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker, Ring doorbells and cameras, and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 were singled out for specific criticism due to concerns with data privacy and data collection.

Silent Hill fans have been speculating over the possibility that Hideo Kojima was preparing a new game in the series, potentially Silent Hills, for release on the PlayStation 5. A teaser tweet from indie game studio Blue Box sparked much of the speculation, leading the firm’s head to post a somewhat emotional video to play down any connection.

The Chinese government has started targeting cryptocurrency mining operations in the Sichuan province. Local electricity companies have been instructed to cut power to large-scale mining firms. As a result, some companies have relocated to the United States, while others could set up shop in neighbouring Kazakhstan.

(Update: Nvidia responds). Nvidia's in-house claims about the performance of its GeForce MX450 GPU are a whopping 60 to 70 percent higher than any retail unit we've tested thus far. Here is how the GeForce MX450 will actually perform when you buy one online or in-store.

Fitbit has acknowledged that its iOS app is causing battery drain problems with its flagship smartwatch. Currently, the company has advised a workaround, although it breaks syncing between the Fitbit Sense and iOS devices.

Cyberpunk 2077 has made the briefest of returns to the PlayStation Store following its removal last year. For some reason, Sony allowed people to wishlist the AAA game, despite CDPR's support drying up for it in the last few months.

What appears to be a widespread issue is affecting Galaxy S21 Ultra devices and looks like the camera app is the culprit. In some cases, the battery drain can go as far as 21 percent in seven hours and only 15 minutes of screen time. Sadly, the regular battery stats monitor does not detect anything wrong.

GPD has got into a spot of bother regarding the Win 3, its latest handheld system. Not only has the company shipped some Win 3 units with the wrong Bluetooth and Wi-Fi module, but it has leaked hundreds of customers' data.

Four months ago, CD Projekt Red revealed that it had become the victim of a ransomware attack. Initially, the company brushed off the attack, but it has now confirmed that people are sharing sensitive information online.

Dell may be up to its CUDA core cannibalizing shenanigans again. A cursory glance at the Dell G15 listing tells us that its CUDA core count is set at 3,584 instead of 3,840. One could have dismissed it as an error had it not been for Dell's recent Alienware m15 R5 debacle. Update: The GeForce 3060 on the Dell G15 has the correct number of CUDA cores

The LG Wing feels like abandonware at this point, with LG affording the device awful software support. Not only has the company silently switched to bi-monthly security patch updates, but it continues to keep the handset on Android 10.

In 2016, a 21-year-old student sent an iPhone to Apple for repair, only for the technicians who repaired her device to share explicit photos and a video of her online. Five years on, Apple has agreed to pay her millions of dollars in damages.

Tesla has cancelled the Plaid+, the range-topping model of the Model S. However, it seems that Elon Musk broke the news on Twitter before Tesla could inform those who had ordered the 1,100 bhp car.

An Oppo A53 user in India has seemingly suffered considerable injuries after the budget smartphone apparently exploded while in his pocket. The rear of the Oppo A53 is completely devastated and there are noticeable burn marks on the case. It seems the 5,000-mAh battery is the likely culprit behind the smartphone blast.

Several Alienware m15 R5 laptops are apparently reporting just 4,608 CUDA cores for the RTX 3070 Laptop GPU instead of 5,120. Apart from the CUDA cores, even the clocks, TMUs, and pixel fillrates are being reported to be lower than normal leading to performance loss. Currently, a possible workaround is to flash the VBIOS from an m15 R4 that seems to restore the correct values and performance.

Xiaomi has opened a survey for fans to complete in regard to MIUI (Global ROM). The feedback form is short and sweet with focus on MIUI features and bugs. Xiaomi’s own MIUI 12 Global ROM bug tracker is filled with dozens of entries covering a wide range of Mi, Redmi, and POCO devices.

A battery of benchmarks has revealed the potential performance differences between the 2021 Apple iMac 24 with a single fan and the higher-end model with two fans. The dual-fan iMac 24 gained around a 10% performance advantage over the single-fan model, which struggled to keep its M1 Apple Silicon at an optimal temperature.

Twitter may soon launch Twitter Blue, a premium tier service that comes with features like delaying tweets, changing threads to more readable formats, and changing color themes. However, there has yet to be an official announcement. Further, many of these features are available through free web services or third-party apps.

Due to restrictions in California for in-person gatherings, BlizzCon 2021 has officially been cancelled. However, the team behind BlizzCon promises a make-up event will take place in early 2022.

The recently released 2021 24-inch Apple iMac all-in-one desktop computer with M1 SoC comes in three variants, with the differences mostly listed on Apple’s website. However, cooling system differences between the base iMac 24 and mid-tier iMac 24 have seemingly been omitted, even though they could affect the performance of the M1 Apple Silicon.

Check Point Software Technologies, a security research firm, reports that 23 apps on the Google Play Store may have exposed the personal data of over 100 million users. The data leaks are the result of poor practices with regard to data management and syncing with cloud databases.

The United Kingdom released a report stating that it tracked the location of 10% of cell phone users without notifying them or receiving their consent. The tracking was used to determine how willing citizens were to spend time away from home after the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

According to Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi, the company's computers are less secure than iOS devices due to the fact that app stores on the Mac are regularly exploited. This sometimes leads to malware infections, but Federighi also said that "a Mac can be operated safely" despite this problem.

UserBenchmark’s current bench charts make for interesting reading, even considering the site’s checkered and much-criticized past. Rocket Lake parts dominate the top of the table, while AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X languishes in 13th position. The multi-core Zen 3 monster Ryzen 9 5950X suffers the ignominy of being outbenched by both the Intel Core i9-9900KS and the i9-11950H.

A German security researcher who goes by the alias "stacksmashing" posted a YouTube video detailing how he was able to dump the firmware of an Apple AirTag. Furthermore, he was able to inject a custom firmware that changed the AirTag's "Lost Mode" function. This could open the door to more malicious jailbreaks of AirTags in the future.

Xiaomi has been facing some backlash over a somewhat ill-judged post on its UK Twitter account. Not only was the text and accompanying image criticized, but it also seems that the post, which was promoting the Xiaomi Mi 11, was actually sent from an iPhone. The Chinese OEM was comparing the Mi 11’s charging ability with the Gates’ recent split.

A new report published today by the Me2B Alliance found that as many as 60% of apps used by schools in the United States share student data with third parties. This data is typically shared immediately upon launching affected apps. Some data is shared with what Me2BA labels "very high-risk third parties" that share data they receive with other networks of vendors and organizations.

Verizon announced today that it will sell multiple media properties, including those that once made up AOL and Yahoo, to Apollo Global Management for US$5 billion. This marks a roughly $4 billion loss for the telecom giant, which purchased AOL for $4.4 billion in 2015 and Yahoo for $4.5 billion in 2017.

Research firm Counterpoint has published a report about global smartphone market share by quarter, including the first quarter of 2021. Apple has shrunk a little but still remains strong and Samsung looks solid as ever. However, Huawei’s situation seems perilous as the Chinese OEM has slipped from 20% share to just 4% in under a year.

Death, taxes, and Xiaomi phones going up in flames—the three certainties of life. Or so it seems recently, anyway. Another Xiaomi phone has now blown up, just two weeks after a similar case with a Poco X3. The device in this case was a Redmi Note 9 Pro, however.

Cyberpunk 2077's notoriously troubled launch has apparently not had an impact on the major bonuses cleared by CD Projekt Red's senior executives this year. CDPR heads received over $US28 million, thanks in large part to Cyberpunk's hype-driven sales success.

It seems that OnePlus has gone all LG with its software support for older smartphones. The company has confirmed that the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T will not receive Android 11 Open Beta updates until the end of August, just in time for Android 12's arrival. So much for Never Settle, OnePlus.

According to a report, Sony is considering addressing the CMOS issue for its most recent games consoles. Currently, the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 require a working CMOS battery to run correctly.

In a new video posted earlier today, Eve claims that HDMI 2.1 on its Spectrum gaming monitor is now working. The video shows Spectrum connected to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 via an HDMI cable and running at 3840x2160 at 144 Hz, which is only possible on HDMI 2.1. The video noticeably does not show content or gaming at this resolution on Spectrum, and it should be noted that the video is limited to 1920x1080 at 30 Hz, making verification impossible. While many are skeptical of this achievement, it may be that Spectrum now supports HDMI 2.1.

Acer and Samsung may claim to have produced DisplayHDR 2000 certified monitors, but VESA thinks otherwise. In fact, VESA has not even created a DisplayHDR 2000 tier and believes that both companies are acting deceptively.